Module 6, Lesson 4: Testing the Scaffold Frontend (Mobile)
How do you run your mobile scaffold on a real device? You use an Android emulator, which works the same on Windows or Mac. Have Claude Code walk you through the setup and ask questions first, then work across two terminals to install Android Studio, create the emulator, and boot the app.
Expect real errors: paste screenshots in and debug alongside it. The Product Path walks the full setup.
Why use an Android emulator to test a mobile app?
You use an Android emulator to test a mobile app because it works identically on Windows and Mac and does not assume you already own a physical Android phone, making it the easier starting point.
The setup is genuinely multi-step: installing Android Studio and the SDK, picking a stable SDK version, creating the emulator, and configuring environment variables, including a different API address than web uses since an emulator cannot reach your machine's localhost the same way. Debugging alongside Claude Code, by pasting screenshots of errors, is the real skill this builds, not just the finished emulator.
Before We Start
From previous lessons:
- Your API is confirmed working. Module 6, Lesson 2
- Your mobile scaffold compiles and can reach your API through the web. Module 6, Lesson 3
- That web confirmation is committed to your feature branch. Module 6, Lesson 3
Tools / setup you'll need:
- WebStorm, open to your project, with a couple of terminals available
- Claude Code
- Android Studio, which you'll install during this lesson if you don't have it
- A Clerk account, if you want to skip the auth placeholder issue entirely
By the end of this lesson, you'll:
- Have installed and set up an Android emulator through Claude Code
- Have your mobile scaffold actually running on that emulator
- Have fixed a real environment variable issue so the emulator can reach your local API
- Have pushed your working scaffold to your main branch